Ixtellor wrote:I'm going to disagree that all Trump supporters are racist assuming that the Trump campaign was racist in its nature.

1) There is no evidence that Trump supporters actually pay attention the campaign. Outside of the "build the wall" I think you will find that his supports don't have any idea what he has promised to do other than "make America great again" which isn't explicitly racist. (it might be implicitly racist for reasons a Trump supporter would never bother to read about). Anecdotally, my entire family are lifelong Republicans and they didn't watch a single debate and can't name an policy proposals other than the wall. This doesn't mean they aren't racist, but the point is that if you support a candidate and don't actually follow the election its hard to claim they support X because of Y policy if they can't even name Y.

2) Racism has been overused. Romney is racist, taxes are racist, using pronouns is racist.... its the boy who cried wolf. So living in their bubbles of Fox news and Breitbart Conservatives don't pay attention to claims of racism because they seem to be effectively immune to the label.

3) White non-educated workers in 3 States won Trump the Presidency and it has nothing to do with his polices, campaign, or racist comments. They voted for him because their jobs left 20 years ago, have never returned, and they decided to try something different. (While Dem's did convince them Romney didn't care which prevented those voters from switching, that same level of attack was never leveled against Trump with the focus being on his qualifications and temperment while he was focused on jobs jobs jobs ) The motivation was economic relief after decades of decline, not racism.

I overall agree with your post and just felt like adding this tidbit:

On #3: it has been repeatedly pointed out that Obama won this demographic 8 years ago and that Trump's message was very similar to Obama's. (I'm an inexperienced politician who will change Washington DC)

Ixtellor wrote:I'm going to disagree that all Trump supporters are racist assuming that the Trump campaign was racist in its nature.

1) There is no evidence that Trump supporters actually pay attention the campaign. Outside of the "build the wall" I think you will find that his supports don't have any idea what he has promised to do other than "make America great again" which isn't explicitly racist. (it might be implicitly racist for reasons a Trump supporter would never bother to read about). Anecdotally, my entire family are lifelong Republicans and they didn't watch a single debate and can't name an policy proposals other than the wall. This doesn't mean they aren't racist, but the point is that if you support a candidate and don't actually follow the election its hard to claim they support X because of Y policy if they can't even name Y.

2) Racism has been overused. Romney is racist, taxes are racist, using pronouns is racist.... its the boy who cried wolf. So living in their bubbles of Fox news and Breitbart Conservatives don't pay attention to claims of racism because they seem to be effectively immune to the label.

3) White non-educated workers in 3 States won Trump the Presidency and it has nothing to do with his polices, campaign, or racist comments. They voted for him because their jobs left 20 years ago, have never returned, and they decided to try something different. (While Dem's did convince them Romney didn't care which prevented those voters from switching, that same level of attack was never leveled against Trump with the focus being on his qualifications and temperment while he was focused on jobs jobs jobs ) The motivation was economic relief after decades of decline, not racism.

I overall agree with your post and just felt like adding this tidbit:

On #3: it has been repeatedly pointed out that Obama won this demographic 8 years ago and that Trump's message was very similar to Obama's. (I'm an inexperienced politician who will change Washington DC)

2. Racism isn't the boy who cried wolf. It's the the fish who doesn't realize what water is. All 2016* tells us is that racism shouldn't be used as a talking point, just address racism via policy. Like how Trump is appointing all these people that have nothing to do with his campaign promises, he just picks them quietly because they're billionaires, or they're loyal to him.

*This is a bigger and more precarious assumption than anyone actually realizes. Basic example is none of the lessons of 2012 were applied in 2016 from the GOP. They slapped latinos, and got better results than 2016. Politics is more fluid than people expect. Issues that seem pivotal won't matter in 2020, but things could change. The key point is that nobody really knows, and it's important to be skeptical of any broad strokes/claims, while not being stubborn about it either.

Keep in mind that we're extrapolating from few data points...the takeaway isn't necessarily that latinos care less about racism in 2016, merely that trends shifted for other reasons.

People who point at racism keep expecting it to be a primary discriminator. As if people single issue vote on the topic. This largely doesn't appear to be the case. The big single issue topic seems to be Abortion, because it's usually framed as life and death. After that, we have guns, which has a nice subset of single issue voters, but everything else seems to be relatively minor. Economy, maybe? It's routinely an important issue, but I don't know if it's as commonly cited as a single issue that supercedes all else.

After all, people clearly see Clinton as superior in race relations, they just don't care*. I bet if you rewound to 2012, you'd also find the same thing. The aftermath is a legitimate finding, in that Republicans could totally improve their image here, it just appears to not be critical. I'd wager that the number one overall issue is economics, in all presidential elections.

Tyndmyr wrote:Keep in mind that we're extrapolating from few data points...the takeaway isn't necessarily that latinos care less about racism in 2016, merely that trends shifted for other reasons.

People who point at racism keep expecting it to be a primary discriminator. As if people single issue vote on the topic. This largely doesn't appear to be the case. The big single issue topic seems to be Abortion, because it's usually framed as life and death. After that, we have guns, which has a nice subset of single issue voters, but everything else seems to be relatively minor. Economy, maybe? It's routinely an important issue, but I don't know if it's as commonly cited as a single issue that supercedes all else.

After all, people clearly see Clinton as superior in race relations, they just don't care*. I bet if you rewound to 2012, you'd also find the same thing. The aftermath is a legitimate finding, in that Republicans could totally improve their image here, it just appears to not be critical. I'd wager that the number one overall issue is economics, in all presidential elections.

Assuming those white less educated voters were being truthful, the fact that the economy wasn't very important needs an asterisk. The economy wasn't very important to the country overall, but it was important(aka doing bad) to that subgroup. *

*this assumes the poor economy for uneducated whites was why they voted for Trump.

Abortion being a key issue is why the Republicans will never overturn Roe v Wade no matter how much they claim. I hope. Of course, I also thought Trump would never get the nomination, then I thought he'd never win the presidency, so... anyone else think we should offer free vegetarian meals to the Supreme Court?

sardia wrote:Assuming those white less educated voters were being truthful, the fact that the economy wasn't very important needs an asterisk. The economy wasn't very important to the country overall, but it was important(aka doing bad) to that subgroup. *

*this assumes the poor economy for uneducated whites was why they voted for Trump.

Economy was the most commonly cited very important issue in that source. I don't think there's any qualifier needed as a result, and the conclusion that the economy wasn't very important to the country overall is questionable.

Looking backward, we see similar numbers too. They show us that it was also about the same level of importance in 2008. So, the lesson that other things can be thrown under the bus so long as you cater to the big, important issues likely has broader relevance.

sardia wrote:Assuming those white less educated voters were being truthful, the fact that the economy wasn't very important needs an asterisk. The economy wasn't very important to the country overall, but it was important(aka doing bad) to that subgroup. *

*this assumes the poor economy for uneducated whites was why they voted for Trump.

Economy was the most commonly cited very important issue in that source. I don't think there's any qualifier needed as a result, and the conclusion that the economy wasn't very important to the country overall is questionable.

Looking backward, we see similar numbers too. They show us that it was also about the same level of importance in 2008. So, the lesson that other things can be thrown under the bus so long as you cater to the big, important issues likely has broader relevance.

It's not like either campaign threw issues under the bus. More like, you campaign on said economic issues, but the people you appoint for policy do other stuff that's tangential to economic issues.

Trump cutting taxes and dumping environmental regulations isn't going to save many coal worker jobs. But since he ran on it, coal workers may have voted for him anyway. Or they were concerned about their own status because their benchmark, how well minorites are doing relatively, looked worse. To get back on topic, racism may not win elections but that doesn't mean it's not important. Just like how global warming opponents lost, it doesn't mean they were wrong about global warming.

Trump did play on white identity fears. "the country is becoming the other, only by voting Trump can the world go back to the old days when white men won bread. You were happier then, and less happy now. " That I expect. It's just that the rest of the GOP thought it was OK to let Trump win. Remember, not Trump voters hated Trump and Trump got almost all of the GOP establishment vote. They knew he was sexists, authoritarian, and traded in racism but they still voted for him. If anything, the GOP establishment is less racist then the GOP voter since they kept abandoning Trump in anticipation of the GOP revolt that never happened against Trump.

sardia wrote:Assuming those white less educated voters were being truthful, the fact that the economy wasn't very important needs an asterisk. The economy wasn't very important to the country overall, but it was important(aka doing bad) to that subgroup. *

*this assumes the poor economy for uneducated whites was why they voted for Trump.

Economy was the most commonly cited very important issue in that source. I don't think there's any qualifier needed as a result, and the conclusion that the economy wasn't very important to the country overall is questionable.

Looking backward, we see similar numbers too. They show us that it was also about the same level of importance in 2008. So, the lesson that other things can be thrown under the bus so long as you cater to the big, important issues likely has broader relevance.

It's not like either campaign threw issues under the bus. More like, you campaign on said economic issues, but the people you appoint for policy do other stuff that's tangential to economic issues.

In the sense that Trump did not bother with any of the things identified in the previous post-mortems, they kind of did. Could the Republican party benefit from minority appeal? I'd say yes. That's still a valid strategic observation. Trump, however, did not do anything for that. At least not directly, and it certainly did not appear to be a priority.

Trump cutting taxes and dumping environmental regulations isn't going to save many coal worker jobs. But since he ran on it, coal workers may have voted for him anyway. Or they were concerned about their own status because their benchmark, how well minorites are doing relatively, looked worse. To get back on topic, racism may not win elections but that doesn't mean it's not important. Just like how global warming opponents lost, it doesn't mean they were wrong about global warming.

Many? Nah. But any gains at all can be hailed as progress. They haven't seen anything for ages, and if the other party is offering them only continued, harder times, then even modest gains are a comparative win.

Relatively doing worse is not something I hear a lot about, save from the left, looking for justifications. Now, sure, if minorities were doing amazingly better, envy is totally a rational thing to expect...but that doesn't really represent the situation. Many of these towns have effectively no diversity to begin with, so how they are doing locally isn't seen as terribly connected to anything to do with race. Certainly, the Democrat preference for non-coal energy sources doesn't obviously connect up with anything race specific. It seems like a really strange desire to attribute negative motives to the opposition.

Sure, electability isn't truth, but it indicates a great deal about tactics. Those used with regards to racism are simply not working. This indicates that at least some assumptions are wrong. And frankly, I see very little willingness to re-examine those assumptions.

Trump did play on white identity fears. "the country is becoming the other, only by voting Trump can the world go back to the old days when white men won bread. You were happier then, and less happy now. " That I expect. It's just that the rest of the GOP thought it was OK to let Trump win. Remember, not Trump voters hated Trump and Trump got almost all of the GOP establishment vote. They knew he was sexists, authoritarian, and traded in racism but they still voted for him. If anything, the GOP establishment is less racist then the GOP voter since they kept abandoning Trump in anticipation of the GOP revolt that never happened against Trump.

Eh, a lot of this was just nostalgia. The whole "remember a better time that never happened". The fact that said time was actually worse for other people is never relevant to that. People telling you how music was better before "point where they became old" are engaging in basically the same logical error. The good stuff gets remembered, and a lot of the forgettable crap has been forgotten.

Sure, everyone was willing to ignore Trump's racism, etc in order to vote for what they wanted. This is not equivalent to actively desiring racism, etc, no matter how much the left wishes it was.

Expecting the former not to exist is expecting racism to be a single issue for voters. And it isn't, and hasn't usually been, and I don't see why we should expect it. The whole expectation does not seem reasonable, and excoriating the electorate for not matching this expectation seems...odd.

I found the skittishness of the GOP politicians to be surprising given their supposed denial of racism and sexism. They abandoned Trump every time he said something awful, only to come crawling back when they realized that the voters weren't abandoning him. Why did GOP politicians repeatedly abandon Trump? Because of the racist, sexists things he said. It's not a liberal only concern. Well, it wasn't until 2016. I hope Trump hasn't inspired a new breed of politicians.

I'm sure Democrats will come up with a new effective strategy. Either that, or an effective coalition of politicians will label themselves Democrats and run. A party can't lose repeatedly without changing.

sardia wrote:I found the skittishness of the GOP politicians to be surprising given their supposed denial of racism and sexism. They abandoned Trump every time he said something awful, only to come crawling back when they realized that the voters weren't abandoning him. Why did GOP politicians repeatedly abandon Trump? Because of the racist, sexists things he said. It's not a liberal only concern. Well, it wasn't until 2016. I hope Trump hasn't inspired a new breed of politicians.

I'm sure Democrats will come up with a new effective strategy. Either that, or an effective coalition of politicians will label themselves Democrats and run. A party can't lose repeatedly without changing.

Sure. Large portions of the Republican party dislike racism and sexism. But politicians over-estimated how much pull is there, and how much influence gaffes actually have. Actual gaffes seem to be almost minimal in impact, unless the politician then shows shame or weakness.

The lessons to be learned from this are, at a minimum, that racism/sexism can be nearly ignored on the right, with minimal impact. They're low priority things. Some people may take away significantly worse understandings of this. Additionally, you can apparently say a pretty significant amount of dumb stuff, as long as you bull through it arrogantly afterward. The value of being apologetic after an error appears to be surprisingly low.

This is unfortunate, if you're hoping for elections based on facts and stuff.

The Democrats will either grow or die, true. I would rather they change and grow. The "death" option probably results in a good bit of Republicans being effectively unopposed before their opposition can really mature. Probably the Libertarians or some wholly new coalition. Libs are the largest third party, but that doesn't mean they'd be most relevant, or that their existing policy would dominate the resulting coalition. Anyways, that period of being effectively unopposed is bad, I think. You need some balance, and we're far better off with two healthy parties competing for voters.

Tyndmyr wrote:Sure. Large portions of the Republican party dislike racism and sexism. But politicians over-estimated how much pull is there, and how much influence gaffes actually have. Actual gaffes seem to be almost minimal in impact, unless the politician then shows shame or weakness.

So basically, when Trump doubles down on his mistakes and insists that he was "smart" for refusing to pay taxes or that he's just one of the boys living the dream when he brags about how runs a beauty pageant for the sole purpose of being able to go into the girls' locker room to watch them undress, by not being embarassed for being a human shitstain he's actually being shrewd.

Or more of a human shitstain. You know something is wrong when "smart" and "vile" are difficult to distinguish.

Someone can be both smart and vile. Trump isn't an idiot. He's exploiting an opportunity. Yes, he's also awful in many respects, but these are not an obstacle to him in the present environment.

He wasn't the first person to note that gaffes are often of comparatively minor impact in presidential races, for instance. We have sayings like "it's not the crime, it's the cover-up". In summary, everyone picks up accusations, in politics. Literally everyone. This gets essentially filtered out, because there's no credible way to do anything else. So, people are reacting to different things instead. If someone shows actual guilt, well, they're probably guilty. If they're trying to cover it up, obviously guilty.

Actual guilt or innocence is mostly irrelevant in such an environment.

I suspect a lot of people buried their head in the sand and pretended not to hear about Trump's awful personal life. For people who thought that Hillary was a warmonger, for people who thought she was the worst type of corrupt career politician, for people (like me) who forsaw her doubling down on a new assault weapons ban, there wasn't much of a choice. You look at what he's been saying for the past year, ask yourself "am I really voting for this guy?", look at his opponent, and then sigh as you check the box for R.

CorruptUser wrote:But the argument of "well, he does bad thing ____, but he will enact greater things ____" only works when there actually is something positive to place behind that 'but'.

Let's be fair to Republicans. Trump has kept establishment pretty happy save for his corruption, nepotism and Russia position. The courts, regulations, and tax policy has been pretty standard Republican awful, and not moderate Republican bad. The first two are only a problem if they lose congress or the voters notice. The right media isolates conservative voters from Trump's failures. Trump may have a Russia problem Congress.... But Trumps friendliness with Putin historically will influence Republicans to be friendlier to Putin. ( Voters of the same party tend to follow the president on attitudes to foreign powers. ) Trump has bet that Republican politicians will be spineless, and it's paid off a lot. The only conservative people being screwed are the swing voters who voted him in.